UPDATED
The College Republicans at Emory University want Senior Vice President and Dean of Campus Life Ajay Nair to “either resign or retract and apologize” for comments he made comparing the post-election atmosphere on the campus to that of 9/11.
“It was that state of shock — ‘how could this happen in our country?’” Nair had said in a November 30 article in The Emory Wheel.
“[…] that loss of innocence that we are maybe more vulnerable to racism and to xenophobia than we thought we actually were. Americans were sort of targeted on 9/11, and not all Americans felt targeted after the election, but certain members of our community felt uncertain about their future.”
A statement on the CRs’ Facebook page read “Our dean should not be demeaning the tragedies of the thousands of lives lost and affected by the attacks on 9/11.”
More from The Wheel:
Although the College Republicans’ statement said that Nair had compared the election result to 9/11, the dean had been commenting on the reactions to the events he observed on both college campuses when he made the comparison in a Wheel interview.
“Nair, who was a dean at the University of Virginia in 2001, said the reaction to Trump’s victory at Emory was reminiscent of the campus atmosphere at UVA post-9/11,” the Wheel article read.
[CR Event Manager Niko] Vidger argued that Nair’s words implied an equation of the harm done to the country by each of the two events.
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“If you read the quote closely, he said, ‘Americans were sort of targeted.’ … He’s using the word ‘targeted,’ and so it’s noting an equivalency,” Vidger said.
The dean issued a statement on Facebook Thursday evening in which he said his comparison had been between the campus “emotions,” not the events themselves.
“I offered this comparison based on what I heard directly from community members,” Nair wrote. “It is unconscionable to invalidate the lived experiences of people because you haven’t had the same experience.”
Indeed — because a democratically elected American president with absolutely no connection whatsoever to terrorism should worry people as much as religious fanatics who willingly commit suicide in the course of murdering thousands … all in the “service” of their religion.
Also, thanks to Wheel reporter Zak Hudak for acting like the mainstream media by “informing” readers on exactly what the dean “meant” by his initial comments.
Nair elaborated on his remarks in a December 1 Facebook post.
The dean is no stranger to controversy: A mere day after the murders of five Dallas police officers, he invoked Black Lives Matter in a message about the campus doing “its part” to “dismantle racism.”
He also defended student (over)reaction to pro-Trump chalkings, and remarked during a dispute over a campus Chick-fil-A restaurant that statements by the company’s president “d[id] not reflect Emory’s values.”
On the 9/11 comparison, Vidger and Nair both have their supporters; however I’d caution the former on acting like your all-too typical campus social justice warriors by demanding resignations for any perceived slight.
Requesting an apology seems quite sufficient, and if the dean refuses that’s on him. Let his ridiculous statement(s) stand.
UPDATE: A link to Dean Nair’s December 1 Facebook comments was added.
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